1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for making paper.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Present day paper making techniques are geared to large volume, low-cost classes of paper. The higher quality of these mass-produced papers are used for correspondence, letter writing, product marketing brochures, etc. At the other end of the scale, such lower grade papers are used for newspapers, etc.
Prior to the invention of the Fourdrinier paper machine by Nicolas Louis Robert in 1800, paper was mostly made by hand. Although the volume of such hand-made paper was small, the making of it was greatly decentralized. Of course, the quality of paper depended on the craftsman who made the paper, and a large variety of aesthetic papers could be produced by these individual craftsmen. Since the advent of the printing press and the Fourdrinier paper making machine, the hand-crafted paper maker has all but been eliminated except for a few artists who still produce unique hand-made papers or extremely small volume printings of artistic drawings or writings.
In hand-crafted paper making, the craftsman or artist can control and select the appropriate materials which in the paper making process are in suspension in a water carrier and are then filtered and deposited on a supported substrate to form the sheet of paper. The craftsman, therefore, can select the type of material and can also introduce textural effects to the already formed paper.